‘No passengers’: Someway & somehow, this Bruins team is looking like a legitimate contender

SAN JOSE — The narrative pretty much wrote itself.

Clawing back against a Bruins club that boasted a flawless 17-0-0 mark this season when holding a lead of three or more goals, who better to orchestrate a come-from-behind win for the Sharks than the man who was once the franchise in Boston in Joe Thornton?

Sprouting plenty of grey in his beard, the 39-year-old pivot very well could be in the final season of what has been a Hall-of-Fame career, and made the most of what will likely be one of the final times he’ll be able to exact some vengeance against his former club.

As his wristed a puck past Tuukka Rask at 13:36 in the third period for a go-ahead goal, Thornton appeared to deliver the coup de grace — his first hat trick in eight years sealing a disheartening result for Boston, and putting an emphatic bow on what should have been an easy night at the office for the scribes in San Jose.

But, as they’ve done seemingly all season long, this Bruins team isn’t one to following along with normal conventions, nor are they prone to falling in line with the same old tired narratives.



The hockey gods will likely turn a blind eye to what transpired Monday night at SAP Center, and not just because of the bevy of missed calls, failed reviews and poor officiating. Playing their third game in four nights, the Bruins ran out of steam following a three-goal salvo in the opening period against San Jose, at one point failing to land a single shot in against Martin Jones in net for a stretch of 18:05 that spanned two periods.

“To be honest, in my terms, I call that (game) a soup,” Jake DeBrusk said. “Just one of those games where it seems like it's back and forth and there's missed calls here and there that go on that affect the game.”

Add in yet another shorthanded scoring chance surrendered that led to a Logan Couture penalty-shot score, a pair of goals relinquished in the final minute of a period, and just one total 5v5 shot on goal for Boston’s Get Out Of Jail Free Card in Patrice Bergeron’s line — and the writing was on the wall for a heartbreaking finish for the B’s in the Bay Area.

As one could expect, when Bruce Cassidy held court with the media roughly 30 minutes after Thornton's hatty put San Jose ahead, 5-4, with 6:28 left to play, he didn’t really know where to start.

Of course, not in terms of San Jose’s rally. Rather, the task of singling which player he was most happy for following a dramatic 6-5 overtime win proved to be the challenge for the B’s bench boss.

Would it be Chris Wagner, the fourth-line grinder who — despite being denied a goal in the opening stanza — still managed to bury the equalizer with just 1:49 left in regulation? Or perhaps Karson Kuhlman, the rookie who lit the lamp for the first time in his NHL career in what was just his second game up with the big club.

Maybe DeBrusk, who has helped assuage Boston’s scoring concerns in wake of David Pastrnak’s thumb surgery by racking up four goals and eight points in the four games since No. 88’s sudden injury? Or Charlie McAvoy, who notched the game winner in OT and appears to have turned the corner after a frustrating start to the year?

In the end, Cassidy relented.

“There’s a lot of different guys,” Cassidy said. “Just the group. Let's face it, we win as a team, lose as a team and I thought that was the case tonight. Happy for everybody, including myself."

Even on a night in which a red-hot Brad Marchand was held in check and Rask had to battle against a high-powered Sharks offense, Boston did what it had to do to scrape together enough for a win — with McAvoy’s OT strike handing the Bruins their sixth win in a row and clinching points in the standings for the 11th straight contest.

“Pretty cool, stringing six together,” Wagner said postgame after tallying his eighth goal of the season, a new career high. “Points in our last 11, so we're just on a roll. We're picking each other up, new guys every night. It's pretty special."

Currently, Boston sits second overall in the Atlantic (and in a tie for third overall in the entire NHL), with 78 points on the season off of a 35-17-8 record.

The elephant in the room lies in the leviathan hovering above the Bruins in the Lightning, who wield a 45-11-4 record, a plus-77 goal differential, and a loaded roster headlined by Nikita Kucherov — who’s casually on pace to be the first player to tally 130 or more points in a single season since both Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr accomplished the feat during the 1995-96 season.

Still, even with the cutthroat competition and the warts still present on this roster (a listless third line, shorthanded goals), this Bruins club has something brewing — and it all seems to be coming together at the right time.

Boston is already one of the more dominant defensive teams in the league, surrendering the second-fewest 5v5 goals, while rolling out the second-ranked power play with 26.9 percent success rate. Rask is 12-0-2 since the end of December with a save percentage of .927, while Jaroslav Halak appears to be getting back on track, posting a 2-0-1 record in his last three outings with a .962 save percentage.

Toss in the usual suspects up front like Bergeron, Marchand, Pastrnak and David Krejci, a loaded blue line that has relegated an NHL starter in John Moore into a backup role for the time being and regular contributions from players like Wagner, and this Bruins club might be making some noise come spring.

Add another piece or two before the deadline, and that prediction suddenly starts to look more and more like a guarantee.

“We never say die,” McAvoy said. “You get a contribution from Wags off a great shot from Brandon (Carlo) and that's absolutely massive. ... We know those guys are capable of that, so no surprise on our part. They make special plays like that. We needed everyone tonight, there were no passengers."